Dr. Strangelove

I just got home from Waco, where I spent the day with my interesting relatives (uncles, cousins). The last thing we did there before I left was watch a commercial-free Dr. Strangelove.

It's quite a good movie; very funny throughout most, yet slightly (at least) disturbing throughout a lot of it. Only when taken in proper historical context though.

Peter Sellers is absolutely hilarious in his rendition of the crazy German doctor (and also does well in his role as the president and whoever else along with being the producer and director of the movie). His Nazi hand just cracks me up.

If you don't know what the heck I'm talking about, watch the movie. It's worth your time.

You musical types may find this interesting

Mozart's Musikalisches Würfelspiel: "In 1787, Mozart wrote the measures and instructions for a musical composition dice game. The idea is to cut and paste pre-written measures of music together to create a Minuet."

Amazing.

I randomly saw Adam's sister Jessica on campus today. She said she was walking back from her dad's office, and I was on my way to Zachry to drop off some homework.

Lovely physics

I sent an email to Mrs. Walker asking her to use the following paper as a source of some test problems for her physics I/II kids: An analysis of the forces required to drag sheep over various surfaces.

That would be pretty funny.

New poll, old results

Thanks to Adam for the very general idea of the new poll.

Old results:

Favorite TGS issue? (By noticeable feature.) Answers Votes Percent 1. Arrowed!! 8 47% 2. Children!! 1 6% 3. MSG'd!! 2 12% 4. Cerebellum'd!! 6 35% Total Votes: 17

The Outhouse

After following a link on the quitters' blog to The Outhouse, some sort of opinion publication, I read an article about file sharing/music "piracy" that bothered me, and so I wrote a lengthy, in-depth reply. It caught the attention of their editor, who asked me if I wanted to write for their main site. I suppose this is a bit of an honor (but I have no idea of their reader membership). Anyway, I thought Jeannie might enjoy hearing that and reading the article, my response, his response to my response, and my response to his response to my response. :-)

The rest of you, read them (article, responses) too!

This makes me want to puke

Greg aksekiM [reversed to protect from Googling] is running for the A&M class of '07 president. Urgghhhh. Excuse me while I empty my stomach of its contents.

*Edit* If you really want the bowel-lurching experience for yourself, merely go here.

Sweet!

I just realize that my earliest class on Monday, Wednesday, Friday has been canceled for the next week! I get to sleep in an hour and a half later!

Of course, he did make up for it by assigning 6 1.5-spaced pages of essays over boring 18th-century scientific publications >:-(.

Even so, I feel the strange dichotomy of:
"I don't have to go to class!"
and
"I paid for that class, so we should be having it!"

Interesting.

Boring class

Today in ENGR 111 honors we get to talk about units. A whole two hours about UNITS. And it is boring me to tears! I mean, maybe I have learned one thing (steradians) that would have taken me 5 minutes to learn otherwise. Oh well. It's not like I can't surf the internet at the same time. :-)

Two things

1. I got the last of the SRS pictures, so I shall be uploading them shortly to those who went.

2. I saw a squirrel hopping around with a radio collar around its neck. It made me laugh.

Science Bowl Pictures!

Hey, I got the pictures from the Bonnie Toole from SRS. You should probably get them too, and if you don't, I would be happy to upload the pix to you. Just ask.

Stupid problem

The first problem on our homework for tomorrow in NUEN is this:

Estimate the mass of the lightest atom hydrogen and the heaviest naturally occuring element uranium.

I'm thinking, hmm, 1 amu and 238 amu (respectively)? But then, is that really an estimate?

Professor notsoP says to divide 1 and 238 by 6.02x10^23 each. He admits that estimate isn't exactly the best word for the problem.